Who’d want to be a Gastroenterologist – sticking tubes up and down people all day long? Someone a bit peculiar one can’t help thinking, though my two seemed very nice. I’ve had those tubes in both ends now, from up and down and still somehow…

First of all, to state the obvious: everyone is different. This is just my experience. So, for example, when they said ‘this doesn’t hurt it’s just a bit uncomfortable’ they were wrong. Both procedures gave me the sharp pokey kind of pain I’d been complaining about.

For me the colonoscopy was a bit of a doddle. It probably helped that my best friend took me there, kept me company while I was waiting, waited while I was being processed, and took me home again. The worst thing about it was that the nurse wanted to chat about my holiday plans which were complicated and not really worth discussing. Furthermore she put herself directly in front of  the screen so I couldn’t see properly. I didn’t want to be rude or hurt anyone’s feelings and of course, she was only trying to help, so I was having to adjust my position to see past her, politely field her questions, negotiate the stabs of pain, communicate with the doctor, make sense of the ever unfolding story of my bottom, and keep my own look out for oddness in a landscape which was frankly already pretty odd. It was amazingly empty up there, you know, on account of the laxatives I suppose. A barren wilderness. Nothing was discovered.

The gastroscopy was a different matter and much much worse. I’d been sent a pamphlet which explained all about it and in plain English lightly addressed some potential concerns. At first I wasn’t at all worried except that a friend of mine had advised me to ‘take the drugs, then it’s fine, you won’t remember it’. I reasoned away her advice firstly because I wanted to be able to get back home without help, and secondly because I didn’t want to waste a whole day on it. Also I figured that just because you can’t remember something doesn’t make it less awful if it’s awful, and it might not be awful anyway. I don’t trust drugs I know nothing about, especially those that affect consciousness – even a whiff of weed can send me into a falling spin – and I thought sedation was being suggested just to make the patient a bit more relaxed and amenable, to make the hospital run a bit more smoothly, which in my case might not happen. I also thought I could change my mind on the day. In the event I couldn’t, because no-one was available to take me home. Bad planning!

I’d looked it up on Youtube – which took some thought as I was keen to avoid any horrible sights and didn’t want to leave traces of anything weird on my computer history – and all I found were some dimly lit videos taken at a distance from behind the doctor’s back. This ought to have raised alarm. But no, my alarm wasn’t raised until I was there in hospital being asked to sign a piece of paper saying that all the risks had been clearly explained and I wasn’t going to sue anyone if anything went awry. I said I wasn’t sure I was happy about it now, and two different nice people went through it all again and tried to reassure me that there was nothing to worry about. Ah but now I was wising up! Methought they did protest too much!

So here’s the thing. If you don’t have sedation you opt instead for a local anaesthetic. This is sprayed into your throat – it prevents the gagging reflex and allows the tube to slip down more easily into your stomach. That sounds fine and simple doesn’t it? What isn’t fine and simple is how it feels not to feel your throat. It’s hard to describe. You won’t have experienced it before and the doctors and nurses probably haven’t either. You feel as if you’re choking. You feel thoroughly convinced that you’re choking because you can’t feel yourself swallowing. In utter panic, I exclaimed, ‘I can’t swallow! I can’t swallow!’ Softly and smilingly they said, ‘you can swallow, you just can’t feel it!’ This did nothing to assuage the sensation that I was drowning in spit and would shortly cop it. They said, ‘are you happy for us to continue?’ Suddenly I saw that there were at least five people in the room gathering round the couch. As one of them inserted a mouth guard round my teeth, it started to occur to me that this was rather like being tortured. The words ‘lamb’ and ‘slaughter’ entered my thoughts. Nevertheless I lay down on my side and kept my mouth open, already gagging and writhing. Almost immediately, as hands were laid on me and the tube approached, I sat up again. I said ‘I’m really sorry I’ve changed my mind I can’t allow it.’ The team backed off instantly and let me go – as if they’d witnessed this reaction many times before. I’d said my safe word.

It wasn’t over, however. I was pursued down the corridor by a very sweet nurse who started trying to persuade me to go back and go through with it. It wouldn’t take long, it wasn’t dangerous, it would all be over soon, I would find out the cause of my symptoms, it was a waste of my time otherwise. She was very kind and comforting. She mothered me. She held my hand and stroked my hair and I sat with her for a while in a side room, gradually regaining my composure and gearing myself up to be brave. In retrospect I think what actually made me brave was the anaesthetic wearing off. When I sheepishly (like a lamb?) returned, there wasn’t enough of it left to prevent the gagging reflex actually. Oh yes, I gagged for the Olympics, and I twitched about under the team of hands (pinning me down for my own safety) and cried and sweated and burped revoltingly and it was thoroughly disgusting and one of the most horrible experiences I’ve ever had. The only thing to recommend it in favour of say, being pharmaceutically induced to give birth without any pharmaceutical pain relief, is that it didn’t last long – ten minutes or so I gather, which felt like forty. And of course the latter option was a gateway into a new and more wonderful world of motherhood, whereas the gastroscopy was inconclusive. ‘Mild gastritis’, said my sheet. They didn’t broach the duodenum. ‘Patient restless.’

Wasn’t I brave though? I deserve a medal. I thanked the sweet nurse as if she’d been my saviour, expecting motherly praise and congratulations, but she’d finished with me now, signed me off, dispatched me and went away to deal with the next case. A professional persuader. I felt betrayed.

The horror didn’t linger for me and I don’t mind that I remember it, but I don’t think that’s the issue. The issue is that if your body is relaxed you probably won’t gag so much or feel it so keenly and you won’t panic. Panic doesn’t sound bad but it is, it’s dreadful (literally). It doesn’t matter if it’s rational or not – the emotion is intense and immediate and all-consuming and it’s not what you want.

As medical procedures go, gastroscopy is pretty safe (1 in 1,000 are problematic), and it’s clearly worth doing to identify and prevent illness, but I don’t think it helps anyone to gloss over the nastiness of it as an experience – especially as the nastiness can be alleviated. My pamphlet gave me dry facts, not experiences, and not all the facts. It didn’t tell me I might have to be pinned to the couch. Or that the mouthguard would be uncomfortable. Or the main thing – that I might feel as if I was being strangled and piked by a team of smiling strangers in surgical coats. Some people sail through it, and some people don’t, but how do you know which kind of person you’re going to be?

I now give out my friend’s advice – just say Yes! Take the drugs! That goes for giving birth too, by the way.